The Power of Email Marketing for Small Businesses

In today’s digital landscape, email marketing for small business stands out as a powerful tool you should be leveraging. With over 4.5 billion email users worldwide (Statista), it’s no wonder that 50% of marketers consider email marketing critical to their success (Forbes). But how exactly do you get started?

Let’s dive deeper into why email marketing is a must for your business and how you can harness its power effectively.

Why Email Marketing Matters for Small Businesses

Cost-Effectiveness

Email marketing is significantly more affordable compared to traditional marketing channels like print or TV ads. With some platforms, you can start email campaigns for as little as $17 a month, making it accessible for small businesses with limited budgets (Constant Contact).

Wide Reach

Email marketing allows businesses to communicate directly with a broad audience. For instance, a local bakery can send out a weekly newsletter to update customers on new flavors, special deals, and upcoming events. This direct line of communication ensures your message reaches those who matter most.

Customer Preference

A whopping 77% of B2B consumers prefer email for marketing communications (Forbes). This means your emails are more likely to be opened and read, making them an effective medium for customer engagement.

For example, a fitness studio can use email to share workout tips, nutrition advice, and class schedules, catering to the preferences of their health-conscious subscribers.

Personalization and Segmentation

Unlike many other marketing channels, email marketing allows for high levels of personalization. Businesses can tailor messages based on customer behavior, preferences, and demographics, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates.

Imagine an online clothing store sending personalized recommendations based on a customer’s past purchases—this level of personalization can significantly boost sales.

Perfect your customer segmentation with these industry-specific guides:

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Measurable Results

Email marketing platforms provide detailed analytics, making it easy to track the success of your campaigns. Metrics such as open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and conversion rates offer valuable insights into what’s working and what needs improvement.

For instance, a small restaurant can track which email promotions lead to the most reservations, allowing them to refine their marketing strategy.

Pro Tip: Use a professional email address for outreach. Unbranded or vague email addresses can seem sketchy, or worse, be flagged as spam. If you’re unsure how to get started, our guide on how to create a business email can help you set up a professional email address that instills trust in your customers.

How to Build Your Email List (with Examples)

Building a robust email list is the foundation of any successful email marketing campaign. Here are some strategies to grow your list organically:

Website Sign-Up Forms

Place sign-up forms in prominent locations on your website, such as the homepage, blog, or contact page. Offer an incentive, like a 10% discount on the first purchase, to encourage visitors to subscribe. For example, a boutique might add a pop-up form on their homepage offering a discount in exchange for an email address.

In-Store Collection Methods

Encourage customers to join your email list by offering a discount or incentive at the point of sale. A coffee shop could place a sign-up sheet at the counter with an offer for a free pastry with the next purchase for signing up.

Social Media Promotions

Use your social media platforms to promote your email list, offering exclusive content or deals to subscribers. A local gym could run a social media contest where followers can enter by subscribing to their newsletter.

Lead Magnets

Offer valuable resources such as downloadable guides, webinars, or eBooks in exchange for email addresses. A real estate agency could provide a free eBook on “Top Tips for First-Time Homebuyers” to capture leads.

Legal Considerations

Ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act. Clearly inform subscribers about how their data will be used and provide an easy opt-out option. Always include a privacy policy link in your sign-up forms and emails.

Feeling overwhelmed by email marketing? It’s time to stop struggling and start succeeding. Broadly’s campaign and inbox tools take the hassle out of managing and growing your email list, keeping you organized and compliant. With Broadly, you can finally transform your email marketing from a painful task into a powerful growth engine.

How to Craft Effective Email Campaigns

Once you have your list together, it’s important to know what to do with customer email addresses to keep your subscribers engaged and loyal. Creating compelling email campaigns is one of them. Here’s what you need to do to get people excited to click:

Step 1: Define Campaign Goals

Whether your goal is to increase sales, drive website traffic, or build brand awareness, clear objectives will guide your campaign strategy. For example, a local bookstore might set a goal to increase sales of a new book release by 20% through email promotions.

Just remember to keep things realistic, because lofty goals are often unattainable ones.

Step 2: Choose Your Email Campaign Type

Repeat after us: different strokes for different folks. So, remember to choose wisely when setting up contacts on a particular campaign. Here are a few types you can try:

• Welcome Series: Introduces new subscribers to your brand and sets expectations. A welcome email could include a special offer, a brief history of your business, and links to your best-selling products.
• Newsletters: Keeps your audience informed with regular updates and valuable content. A monthly newsletter for a pet store could feature pet care tips, new product arrivals, and customer stories.
• Promotional Emails: Drives sales with special offers and discounts. A Halloween-themed email from a bakery could promote seasonal treats with a “spooktacular” limited-time discount.
• Abandoned Cart Reminders: Recovers lost sales by reminding customers of items left in their shopping cart. An online boutique, for example, could send a reminder email with a discount code to a past visitor to encourage the completion of a purchase.
• Re-Engagement Campaigns: Wins back inactive subscribers with targeted content and offers. A fitness studio might offer a special membership discount to subscribers who haven’t visited their gym in a while.

Step 3: Use Best Practices for Subject Lines and Preview Text

If you want to excite your audience and get more of their business, you need to put in a bit of effort and a pinch of creativity. The trick is to craft attention-grabbing subject lines and preview text to increase those open rates. You can use action words to create a sense of urgency or curiosity. 

For example, you could try things like: “Today Only: Get 20% Off Your Next Purchase” or “Don’t Miss Out on Our Summer Sale.”

Step 4: Craft Compelling Content

Focus on providing value to your readers. We can’t emphasize this enough. 

Try to use a conversational tone (kind of like how our blogs are), keep messages short and sweet, and include a clear call-to-action (CTA). So, what kind of things should you write about?

Well, for instance, a home decor store might share decorating tips, highlight new arrivals, and include a CTA like “Shop Now” to drive traffic to their site.

Step 5: Design Visually Appealing Emails

Use a clean, professional design with images and branding elements that fully reflect your business. You should also ensure your emails are easy to read with plain English, a balanced layout, and eye-catching visuals. 

A florist, for example, could use beautiful images of their arrangements and a simple, elegant design to capture attention.

Step 6: Leverage CTA Optimization

Ensure your CTAs are prominent and persuasive, guiding readers toward the desired action. Use contrasting colors and clear, action-oriented text like “Buy Now,” “Learn More,” or “Sign Up Today.”

It’s a good rule of thumb to have a CTA near the beginning of your email, speckled throughout (where appropriate), and one at the end. Here’s an example from one of our past campaigns:

Step 7: Ensure Mobile Responsiveness

41% of email views come from phones, so it is a smart idea to optimize your emails for mobile devices, ensuring they display correctly on all screen sizes (Forbes). How, you may ask? Test your emails first by sending them to yourself on various devices to make sure they look great everywhere. 

For instance, a cafe sending out a menu update should check that their new menu items are easily readable on both smartphones and tablets.

Email Personalization and Segmentation

Personalization and segmentation are key for effective email marketing. Let’s take a closer look at these two types of strategies:

Segmentation Strategies

Segmenting your email list is a smart way to send the right messages to the right people. By grouping your customers based on certain characteristics, you can make your emails more relevant and, in turn, more engaging. This helps you connect better with your audience and keeps them interested in what you have to offer.

Here are some simple strategies for segmenting your list:

• Demographics: Segment your list by age, gender, income level, etc. A beauty salon might send different promotions to customers based on age, such as anti-aging facial treatments for older clients and trendy hairstyles for younger ones.
• Purchase History: Tailor messages based on past purchases. An electronics store could recommend games or accessories for a recently purchased gaming console.
• Engagement Level: Target highly engaged subscribers differently than those who are less active. For instance, a software company might offer a free trial extension to inactive users to re-engage them.
• Geographic Location: Customize content based on the recipient’s location. A Florida-based travel agency could send destination-specific deals to customers based in Fort Lauderdale. 

Personalization Techniques

• Dynamic Content: Use variable content blocks to personalize emails for different segments. This is quite common with clothing retailers, where they show different product recommendations to men and women.
• Product Recommendations: Suggest products based on past behavior. An online bookstore could recommend new releases similar to the genres a customer frequently purchases.
• Behavioral Triggers: Send emails based on actions taken by the subscriber, such as browsing history or cart abandonment. A fitness app could send workout tips based on the user’s activity levels.

Pro Tip: Leverage Broadly’s campaign tools to enhance your targeting efforts, ensuring the right message reaches the right audience. From email to SMS, we’ve got you covered. 

Email Automation for Small Businesses

Marketing automation for small businesses can greatly improve the efficiency of your email marketing efforts. After all, it saves you a ton of time writing out and sending emails and text blasts. Let’s get into the details.

Benefits of Email Automation

• Time-Saving: Automate repetitive tasks, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business.
• Consistency: Ensure timely and consistent communication with your audience. A dentist’s office, for example, might automate appointment reminders to ensure patients never miss a visit.

Did you know? Boosting your business with email campaigns and local business advertising is easier than you think. Explore our email marketing lead generation tips and best practices to maximize your efforts.

Key Automated Email Sequences

Here are a few types you can consider for your business:

• Welcome Series: Automatically greet new subscribers and introduce them to your brand. An online cooking class, for example, could send a series of welcome emails with tips on getting started and links to popular courses.
• Birthday/Anniversary Emails: Send personalized messages on special occasions, like birthdays. 
• Post-Purchase Follow-Ups: Thank customers for their purchase and suggest related products.
• Abandoned Cart Reminders: Have an e-commerce store? Recover lost sales with automated reminders.

Setting Up and Optimizing Automated Workflows

You can also define triggers and actions to create effective automated workflows. However, it is a best practice to regularly review and optimize these workflows for the best impact. To keep on top of things, use analytics to track performance and make adjustments as needed.

Measuring Email Marketing Success

Tracking the performance of your email campaigns is one of the best ways to keep your content cool, collected, and converting those sweet sweet leads. Here are some ways you can stay in the know:

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Key performance indicators are a spectacular way to gauge the effectiveness of email marketing for small businesses. Let’s take a quick look at some of the things you can track to gauge your progress: 

• Open Rates: This measures the percentage of recipients who open your email. A low open rate might indicate that your subject lines need improvement.
• Click-Through Rates (CTR): Tracks the percentage of recipients who click on links within your email. High CTRs suggest your content is engaging and your CTAs are just right.
• Conversion Rates: Determines the percentage of recipients who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase. A high conversion rate is a good thing, and it means your email content and offers are compelling.
• List Growth Rate: Monitors the rate at which your email list is growing. If your list isn’t growing, you may need to re-evaluate your list-building strategies.
• Unsubscribe Rate: Keeps an eye on the percentage of subscribers who opt out of your emails. A high unsubscribe rate could signal that your emails aren’t meeting subscriber expectations.

A/B Testing Strategies

Experiment with different subject lines, content, and designs to identify what resonates best with your audience. For example, a travel agency could test two subject lines: “Top 5 Summer Destinations” vs. “Discover Your Perfect Summer Getaway” to see which one is getting a higher open rate.

Using Analytics to Refine Your Strategy

Analyze your email marketing data to gain insights and make informed decisions for future campaigns. If you notice certain types of content consistently perform well, consider incorporating more of that into your emails.

Pro Tip: Use a platform that tracks what you care about most. Broadly provides comprehensive campaign reporting tools to help you track and analyze your email marketing performance. Use these insights to continually refine your strategies and improve your results.

Email Marketing Best Practices for Deliverability

The most important step of any email campaign is ensuring your emails reach your contact’s inbox in the first place. Here are some things to consider to keep your carefully crafted emails from bouncing:

Maintaining a Clean Email List

Regularly update your list to remove inactive subscribers and avoid deliverability issues. A monthly review can help identify and remove emails that consistently bounce or remain unopened.

Avoiding Spam Triggers

Be mindful of the content and subject lines of your emails to prevent them from being marked as spam. For example, avoid excessive use of exclamation marks, all caps, and spammy words like “free” or “guaranteed.”

Authentication Protocols

Implement DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), SPF (Sender Policy Framework), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) to authenticate your emails and protect your sender reputation. These protocols help email servers verify your emails are the real deal.

There are a few ways you can configure these protocols based on the emailing system you currently use. Be sure to check your email campaign settings to make sure these protocols are enabled.

Managing Bounce Rates and Unsubscribes

You should closely monitor and manage bounce rates, and provide easy unsubscribe options to maintain a healthy email list. If someone wants to unsubscribe, make the process simple to avoid frustration and potential spam complaints. This could be something as small as an “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of your email. 

While it might sting to see those precious contacts unsubscribe, remember, they might not have been a good fit anyway, so it saves you a lot of hassle barking up the wrong tree.

Sender Reputation

Maintain a good sender reputation by following best practices and ensuring your emails are relevant and valuable to recipients. At the end of the day, consistently high engagement rates and low spam complaints contribute to a strong sender reputation.

Also see: For a comprehensive overview of launching your campaigns, check out our blog on how to do email marketing (the right way!), and discover the best strategies to engage your audience.

Integrating Email with Other Marketing Channels

Combining email with other marketing efforts can greatly amplify your results. This could be in the form of social media, driving website traffic, and content marketing. Each approach is different, so let’s look closely at each one:

Coordinating Email Campaigns with Social Media

It’s time to get a bit crafty with that content. You worked hard on it, so leverage it in more places than one. For example, you can promote your email content on social media to increase reach and engagement. Share snippets of your newsletter or highlight exclusive email offers on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X.

Using Email to Drive Website Traffic

Include links to your website or blog in your emails to drive traffic and boost SEO. A gardening store could link to blog posts on top gardening tools for the spring, encouraging readers to visit their website for more information (and perhaps purchase a pot or two).

Growing your subscriber email list is at the heart of successful campaigns that drive traffic and sales. Learn how to collect customer email addresses effectively to ensure you’re reaching your target audience.

Combining Email with Content Marketing

Did you know you can use email marketing for small business to distribute valuable content and establish yourself as a thought leader? For example, an accounting firm might share tax preparation tips and updates on new tax laws through their email newsletter. This is a great way to remind readers that tax season is coming up and that they probably should soon book an appointment.

Did you know? You can leverage Broadly’s tools to integrate email marketing with your broader marketing strategy, ensuring cohesive and effective campaigns. Use Broadly’s platform to manage and track your multi-channel marketing efforts seamlessly.

Legal Compliance and Ethical Considerations

Staying compliant with email marketing laws is not only a good idea—it’s the law. Here’s what you need to know:

Overview of Relevant Laws

Familiarize yourself with regulations such as CAN-SPAM, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) to ensure you are staying compliant. The gist is that these laws govern how you collect, store, and use email addresses and other personal information.

Not playing by the rules can blacklist your business, and make it harder for you to market in the future, so always do your best to stay within these boundaries.

Best Practices for Obtaining and Managing Consent

Always obtain explicit consent before adding someone to your email list and provide clear information on how their data will be used. Use double opt-in methods to verify consent and build trust with your subscribers.

Providing Clear Unsubscribe Options

As we mentioned previously, you need to make it easy for subscribers to opt out of your emails, not only to maintain trust but to stay within compliance. It’s a good idea to include an unsubscribe link in every email and ensure it leads to a simple, hassle-free process.

Pro Tip: Simplify your strategy by following these essential dos and don’ts for SMBs to avoid common pitfalls and enhance your email marketing results.

Protecting Subscriber Data and Privacy

In the US, data leaks and cyber-attacks are unfortunately common. With over 3205 data breaches in 2023 alone, impacting nearly 350 million people, it is important to implement robust security measures to protect your subscribers’ data and ensure their privacy (Statista). 

Hackers are always on the prowl to discover weaknesses, so regularly review your data protection practices and update them as needed to stay up-to-date and compliant with the latest regulations.

Campaign Smarter with Broadly

By following these guidelines and leveraging Broadly’s powerful email marketing tools for small businesses, you’ll have the tools to better drive growth for your small business.

With a thoughtful strategy, personalized content, and robust automation, your email campaigns can become a cornerstone of your marketing efforts. Now, go out there and make those campaign emails shine!